Building critical to North Erie Marina operations destroyed in fire Monday

The operators of a Port Bruce marina are racing to rebound from the impacts of a fire ahead of the summer, CTV London's Gerry Dewan reports.

The operators of a Port Bruce marina are racing to rebound from the impacts of a fire earlier this week.

Video posted to social media showed fire shooting through the roof of a building on the North Erie Marina property on Monday evening.

Marina co-owner Mike Jeffreys was working in the building just hours before, “We were in the shop, working during the day, trying to get our propwash boat ready to go in for the spring, to clear out our cut.”

Mike and a co-worker left the building around 4:30 in the afternoon, “Everything seemed fine. Went back to my house and then got a phone call from one of the neighbors saying that they could see smoke coming out of the roof about two hours later.”

He credits volunteer firefighters with the Malahide Fire Service for quickly containing the blaze as winds whipped across the site.

One trailer, owned by a client, was also seriously damaged by the fire, but others were spared.

The front section of the marina building was a social space for patrons and neighbours. Linda Jeffreys says that’s where the fun stuff happened, “Dartboard, pool table, shuffleboard games. We had card nights, bingo nights.”

They had just purchased a new pool table that had never been used.

The biggest impact on the marina is that the junction feeding electricity to the trailers was inside the building, and now the trailers are without power.

Fortunately, no one is currently on-site, but that will change soon. Mike Jeffreys told CTV News, “The priority is to get power back to the park because 80 per cent of the power for the park went through that shop. And so, we’ve got to get that up for opening day, which is in May.”

Mike and Linda say almost 100 boats launch out of the marina every year - many of those people have been coming to North Erie for over 20 years.

Linda Jeffreys said a number of the marina regulars have already offered to help rebuild the hall and shed, with others in Port Bruce offering a hand, “A lot of our campers and boaters are tradespeople. You know, we’ve got a few master electricians, we’ve got concrete guys, we’ve got building companies, we’ve got plumbers, welders. So, we have the people here that are willing to go hands-in to be there for us and help us.”

Mike says Malahide Fire officials told him that determining an exact cause for the fire may be difficult because of the extent of the damage. Both a structural engineer and an insurance adjuster were scheduled to visit the site on Wednesday. Mike and Linda are hoping they will then get the all-clear to begin work on the site.

On the positive side, the Jeffreys’ home, which is located on the property, still has power and the boat launch was unaffected.